Fascinating food in New York and occasionally farther afield

El Bohio Grocery

This Dominican shaved ice has several names, but you'll really don't need to use them. Walk up to a street cart displaying the trademark block of ice (it may be swaddled in a towel) and variously hued bottles of syrup, and you'll manage just fine by asking simply for a flavor and size. I've never had an issue when ordering una cocofresa grande (a large cup flavored with both coconut and strawberry syrups) or un tamarindo pequeno. If you speak no Spanish at all, pantomime and the vendor's knowledge of English, however slender, will see you through.

That said, I was curious about frio frio ("cold cold"), a shaved-ice name I'd seen in print but never heard spoken aloud. On line at El Bohio's streetside window, the fellow ahead of me had never heard it, either. Like me, he knew the name raspado, which sometimes also denotes the handheld scraper-scooper that the vendor "rasps" across the block of ice. The fellow did add that piragua ("pyramid"), the popular term in Puerto Rico, was also heard in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo.

At the head of the line, as he assembled my small orange with condensed milk ($1.50), the Dominican server offered three names: raspado, frio frio, and guayado. That last seems to be very recent slang for "scratched" in the sense of "distressed," as one might want in denim jeans if hipness and not durability is paramount. It all depends on what town you come from, the server added, in all-embracing fashion. My own roots are in suburban Connecticut; how about "Creamsicle in a cup"?